This is Democracy – Episode 89: Law Enforcement in a Pandemic

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Dr. Jeremi Suri: Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. Today, we have the great opportunity to talk with someone who’s been on the frontlines of responding to and helping citizens with this terrible pandemic that we’re dealing with. We’re joined by New York City Police Department Lieutenant Richard Mack. Richard has been with the police force now almost 25 years in New York City. He’s currently the platoon commander in the Strategic Response Group. He also happens to be my cousin and I’ve had the great fortune of watching Rich work in the police department for so long now. Rich, thank you for joining us.

Richard Mack: Thank you.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Before we turn to Rich, of course we have Zachary’s scene setting poem. What is your poem about today’s, Zachary?

Zachary: It’s called Silence and Sound.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Let’s hear Silence and Sound.

Zachary: Before the storm, the streets swung with horns floating into the wind like steam, and echoing off the tall glass stalagmites into the hollow beats of sidewalk walkers. Slowly the little molecules slipped in, making their way into the main channel, felling people gradually, softening the blast and the beat. Now, the parks are all empty. Grass begins to encroach onto the concrete paths. No one mounts the green and rocky hills. The noise of strong feet and wheels is missing. But the birds come back with a bolder song. The squirrels are multiplying, unafraid to leap across trees, chirps and birdsong filling the missing space. On the street corners, now mailboxes are more populous than people. Sole stragglers cross the gray concrete and the silent multitudes await the fall. It’s so many are connecting over the interwebs. Loud laughter filling the airspace between homes and cities, holding Passover Seders through video conference just as loud. So many faces are screaming, happy and sad with new emotions. Silence in the darkened concrete of the city, silence along the unprotected state highways, silence in nations across the ocean, and silence clings to every plastered surface. Then at 7 PM, the cheers suddenly startled the squirrels in the park, the overworked nurse stares up at the applauding skies, the hard-hit police precinct looks up out the windows and the sick person leans out and smiles at the sound.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: It’s very moving, Zachary. What is your poem capturing for us today?

Zachary: My poem is really about this contrast between silence and how our lives have come to a halt, but at the same time here we have all these new emotions and new experiences. In particular, it’s about this tradition now in New York City, where at 7 PM, everyone will clap for first responders.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Right. Well, Rich, what is it like to be a police officer who’s been in the force as long as you’ve been, dealt with 911 and so many other tragedies? What is it like now to deal with this terrible pandemic in New York City?

Richard Mack: Well, I just have to throw out a little warning, is that I’m obviously not speaking on behalf of the police department but as a private citizen, and also as a adjunct professor at John Jay College, but just for professional purposes, I have say that I’m not speaking in an official capacity.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Right.

Richard Mack: It’s very strange. I don’t know if I care to really say that this is similar to 911 because this is nothing like 911. The main thing is, is the city’s quiet. I’ve been out there, there’s really not that much going on. Crime is just — There’s no one out there. You need three main things for a crime to happen, and people are a big part of that requirement in order to have a crime happen. There’s just not a lot of people out there.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Do you as a police officer feel that your job has changed in this environment?

Richard Mack: In this environment, it’s absolutely changed. The biggest concern is not getting sick, not contracting sickness from someone else. Unfortunately, numerous people that I work with have gotten sick, myself included. I’m better now. It’s been just very strange. Just not a lot of 911 calls. There’s not a lot of calls for service. As I mentioned, crime is down overall, though it’s coming up a little bit with burglaries. But overall, there’s just not a lot of people out there. Most people are doing the right thing, which is staying home and sheltering in place.

Zachary: How has this experience changed how you look at your job?

Richard Mack: Well, I’m coming up on 25-years, part of me wondering when’s a good time to leave or to move on to other things or continue to stay. Right now, it seems most important, obviously, that I stay. This is my city, this is what I do, and if we’re needed more, it’s now. Just the strange part is feels like we’re not needed that much because not much is going on.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Right. But of course, when the city reopens and the country reopens in a sense there will be probably more need for you than ever before. I imagine that’s what you anticipate, right?

Richard Mack: Yeah, definitely. My unit deals a lot with protests. I’m sure as the presidential election starts to ramp up, our assistance will be needed to ensure everybody goes out there and protests and gets along or at least behaves appropriately.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: You mentioned already that you tested positive for COVID-19 and you’re doing this interview with us, of course, when you’re quarantined at home and recovering. First of all, what does that experience been like?

Richard Mack: I got lucky. I had milder experience of it. Unfortunately, we’ve lost over 20 members of police officers and school safety agents and traffic agents who have all died from coronavirus, and several people I know have been hospitalized. I’ve been lucky. For me, it’s been like a regular flu for probably about a week-and-a-half and I’m coming out of it now.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: How did you find out that you had COVID-19? What lead you to this moment?

Richard Mack: Well, I started getting little aches and pains, strangely felt like started in the back of my eyes, when I look left to right, I was getting soreness, like I’d been punched in both eyes or something. Then what happened was I had ordered some stuff delivered from Home Depot and it didn’t all get delivered, so I had to go to Home Depot out in Long Island, sent to the wrong location. While I was walking around the store, it hit me like a ton of bricks, and I was like, I got to get home right now. I had about a 102 fever and upset stomach and basically like a standard flu. I look at it, I was very lucky compared to what a lot of other people have had to endure from it.

Zachary: As a department where you’ve seen a lot of people sick and you’re also dealing with a lot of sick members of the public, how is the attitude of the public towards you changed?

Richard Mack: That is probably the only thing I will say that is similar to 911, is we’re definitely back in the good graces of the public, at least temporarily. People are a lot more friendlier, a lot more willing to help us out. Everybody wants to do the right thing. If you compare anything 911 it would be the positive attitude that people are looking upon the police department again, at least temporarily.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: What about the view of the public from the police department? Because you’re in a situation now where you’re often advising people not to go out, maybe discouraging them from congregating where they want to congregate. What does that experience been like?

Richard Mack: Well, for the most part, people have been very cooperative. You get a few groups that don’t want to listen or they’re so ingrained in their own culture that they don’t want to listen to the greater public. We’ve seen that a little bit in certain communities. The police department is not going to go out there and just start arresting people for violating the social distance law. Yes, they want it enforced, but realistically, we’re trying to avoid that route if at all possible. The last thing you want do is people violating the public social distancing, then we arrest them and now we’re stuck with them inside the station house.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Right. So what do you do? How do you handle that or how are you trained to handle that when you see a group congregating in ways they shouldn’t? There was a group playing ultimate Frisbee the other day in a park in Austin. What do you do in that situation?

Richard Mack: It’s oftentimes, the police are put in the worst possible situation where it’s like they’re only — they’re playing ultimate Frisbee, which by the way, it’s been a long time since I’ve played ultimate Frisbee.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: [laughter] Me too, Rich.

Richard Mack: I think I remember us playing that in college, but that’s about the height of my ultimate Frisbee career. They had an incident in New Jersey other day where the police were told to go out there and clear out the park. There was a father playing ball with his daughter. He refused to leave, so they wind up arresting him. It’s a lose-lose situation for the police. It really is. You look at it right away and it’s like, “Why is the police arresting this guy? They should be going out doing bigger things.” The fact is that the police, most of the time, are not dealing with bigger things, they always end up dealing with the smaller stuff. It’s to the point that I think the police need to be firm. But unless it’s really a required arrest situation, you got to lay your hands off and be like, “Well, if they want to risk it, that’s on them.” It’s just not going to end good for the police in any regards.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: But in general, you have found that most people are cooperative?

Richard Mack: In general, most people are cooperative. As I said, there’s been some small pockets of certain communities with certain beliefs that they don’t want to cooperate with the police. I think that’s when you need to get the community leaders involved and try and work out a solution. Because oftentimes, people will also call the police for that situation and then the police wind up arresting somebody. Then it’s like one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenarios, which is what happens oftentimes with the police in a lot of these situations.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: How is the morale among the NYPD? Is this a time that’s bringing you all together in the way 9/11 did or is there a sense that you’ve been abandoned? I know you had trouble, for example, getting tested as so many citizens have, Rich.

Richard Mack: Yeah. The morale, it’s tough. The support from the community does really help during this time period. There are police officers that are in difficult situations because it’s like they may have, I know police officers had newborns at home, and then they’re at work exposing themselves to people who may have the disease and then they’ve got to come home to deal with the newborn, who can’t be exposed at all to certain illnesses. Or you have another detective I know, he has a wife with cancer. She can’t be exposed to any possible illnesses because she’s immune compromised. He has to live separate from her. Everyone says, “Well, that’s what the police signed up for it.” Number 1, they didn’t sign up for it. Number 2, their families definitely did not sign up for it. That puts a lot of officers in a difficult Catch-22 situation, where they want to help the community, but that also might affect their loved ones at home.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: What kind of support does the police department or the city in some other capacity provide for what sounds like an incredibly difficult situation for so many police families that you just described?

Richard Mack: Well, when it comes to something really this big, it’s very difficult for the police department or any department to make concessions, but they have been helpful. They have said those who are, because we also, keep in mind, have police officers who are immunocompromised, and those police officers have basically been told to stay home till this ends because of the concern of them getting sick. As I mentioned, we had several members of the police department pass away. Some of them had immunocompromised systems.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: One of them was someone you told me you worked with who had diabetes, if I’m not mistaken.

Richard Mack: Yeah. Cedric Dixon passed away. He had diabetes and asthma. I don’t remember how severe he had it and I don’t recall it being a major severe thing. He self-isolated at home and unfortunately he passed away. After that, the police department did go out and release all members of the police department if they are immunocompromised and have documentation.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Do you know, Rich, what percentage of the police force is now at home for that reason or because they’re infected as you are? Do you know that?

Richard Mack: I do not. I’ve heard it’s around 20 percent.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Wow.

Richard Mack: A very large percentage. But I heard it’s starting to come down because people are going back to work.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Got you.

Richard Mack: Ten percent of 36,000 is almost 3,600, so you’re talking easily over 7,000 police officers alone, not including civilians.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: I imagine you’re not training and bringing in new officers right now, I would assume, right?

Richard Mack: They had one class. They graduated early. They were close to being the end of their graduation. So they graduated but then they didn’t get to have a graduation. They got no big ceremony at the Garden like I did. Then I believe there are some in the Academy mid-learning and I don’t know what they’re doing with them because obviously, you’re not supposed to have large groups, so I really don’t know what they’re doing with them. When I was in the Academy and there was a snow storm, they threw us out on traffic posts to direct traffic. Which as you can imagine in the middle of one of the major storms, was like the storm in ’95. We didn’t even have a firearm and they threw us out in a major snowstorm to go direct traffic. They said, if you see any  homeless people, we can remove them willingly or not from the storm for their own safety. I’m like so a homeless person can’t be out on the street, but somehow police officer can go stand on a corner and direct traffic. Doesn’t sound right.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Other than the department, how’s the morale of the city as a whole right now?

Richard Mack: I think the morale of the city is pretty good. With something like this, they say that the shorter time period, more people are cooperative, and I think a lot more people have been cooperative. But I think as time goes on, that cooperation is going to come less and less. I think the example of that was Hurricane Irene, which was not so long before Hurricane, what was the big one in New York? I’m drawing blank here.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Hurricane Sandy.

Richard Mack: Sandy. How could I forget? What happened was they evacuated people during Hurricane Irene, and numerous people evacuated and did what they were supposed to do down in the coastal areas. But Hurricane Irene only really caused destruction in upstate New York mostly. When Sandy hit, a lot of people did not evacuate because of that and I think it caused more issues. The point I’m trying to make is that too many alarms, people start to become numb to it.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: They assume it’s not going to be as bad as predicted.

Richard Mack: Yes. Because Irene was not as bad as predicted for the coastal areas. But upstate New York, the towns were devastated, absolutely devastated by it. Then obviously Sandy hit, and Sandy completely devastated the coastal areas of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: So on that note, Rich, did you feel prepared for this? Did you feel that the training and preparatory work you had done put you in a position as a police officer to do the best you could in this situation or should more have been done beforehand?

Richard Mack: From the police department standpoint, I felt pretty well trained. I’m also what’s called the hazmat technician, which I do do a lot of additional training within my unit for this type of scenario, and I felt very well educated and trained. But the problem was this was a system-wide issue. The problem is a lot of the police officers got sick from other police officers, not really dealing with the public. You could clean an area all you want. But if people are sick or unknown to be sick and interacting with other people who are sick or unknown to be sick, you’re going to have this issue. There’s no getting around it. Police officers can’t really work from home, though it would be nice.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Be careful what you wish for.

Richard Mack: Trust me, I’d put that in the suggestion box in a heartbeat. But unfortunately, it’s more of a system-wide thing. Listen, I actually believe that the shutdown orders were made at the appropriate time. If it was done too soon, people would’ve disregarded it, and if it’s done too late, then more people had gotten sick. I think the one thing that I’ve just seen a lot of people do is trying to play the blame game, whether it’s on a city, state, or federal level. Some people may disagree with me, but I think that the calls were made at the most appropriate time that it could’ve been. Sure, it would’ve been great to call it sooner, but would people have listened if people really weren’t getting sick, which, it’s a difficult call to make.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: That makes a lot of sense. So that brings us to our final question which is always the question we’d like to close on with all of our expert guests like yourself. What should our listeners do? How can they help if they care about supporting the work of law enforcement, and peace officers, and others in this difficult time? What is it that ordinary citizens can do to help? How can they make a difference?

Richard Mack: Well, obviously, staying at home is definitely a good start. Looks like we’re over the curve for this, at least in New York, and it’s going to raise in other areas before it gets better, but New York appears to be doing a lot better. I remember an article during 911 that says, “It shouldn’t take a tragedy for you to appreciate what your police officers are going through.” I think the biggest takeaway from this is we shouldn’t have to wait for the next tragic incident for people to be nice to us.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Yes.

Richard Mack: Be kind. The toughest part about this job sometimes is the negativity. Unfortunately, in policing, there can be a lot of negativity. But I’ve gone by and I’ve seen what a disaster some of these hospitals have been having to deal with. Elmer’s General which is like the center point of really this whole coronavirus. Elmer’s is so overwhelmed. Every day I go by there, they’re taking patients away to other hospitals because of the overflow. Listen, the Spanish flu of 1918, the H1N1, the bird flu viruses are part of life. The important thing is is that we learn how to mitigate it. So it affects the least amount of people, especially as we get into heavy populated areas. The main thing I would say is also appreciate your nurses, and the medical staff, and all the people who are stuck in that hospital that really have to endure the amount of sickness and death that’s been going on. Fortunately, everyone’s been getting along, and in my opinion, society has been acting very well during all this.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Sometimes we’re better than our leaders, right?

Richard Mack: Absolutely. Like I said, I think in this particular case, it’s a lot easier to blame the leaders than it is to stand up and say the best choices were made under the information that was given.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Yes.

Richard Mack: All incidents are local and all these type of things, what’s going on in New York City is not what’s going on Upstate New York. What’s going on in New Orleans is not what’s going on in the rest of Louisiana, and I’m sure what’s going on in California or in Texas, it’s localized. It’s really up to the local leaders to make the calls as to when to shut things down, when to open things back up. People need to have an understanding that it’s really in the best interest to see when that call needs to be made and to support it the best they can.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: I agree 100 percent. Zachary, as a young person who sometimes has concerns about the police, as well as showing respect for the police, how do you think about these issues? Does this help you to think about more cooperative relations and better connections between citizens and the police going forward?

Zachary: Definitely. I think the power of this moment we’re in is that it really allows us to reexamine how important emergency responders and law enforcement are in our society and also the role that they should play. I think that this offers us a great opportunity to do that.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Well, that’s very well said. I particularly like both your comment and Rich’s at the end about how these are local issues. We, in local communities, really have to work together as we are. Because regardless of one’s ideology, regardless of one’s point of view, we are all in this together. Rich, you’ve always acted in that way, you’ve always been about public service since we were small kids. I remember your interest in these issues, and it’s a real honor to have you on the podcast. We hope you’d continue to recover, and get healthy, and get back out there helping people in New York and around the country. Thank you for joining us, Rich.

Richard Mack: Thank you, and I hope to join you again when a less serious topic comes out.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Absolutely. We’ll have you on to talk about how we’re becoming a better country after this. Zachary, thank you for your poem and for your insights as always. Thank you for listening to this episode of This is Democracy.

MALE 1: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

MALE 2: The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison Lemke, and you can find his music at HarrisonLemke.com.

FEMALE 2: Subscribe and stay tuned for a new episode every Thursday featuring new perspectives on democracy.